Mann to the Core
by yodapopper
Summary: Wheatley does a bit of a rough landing in 2Fort, providing some much-needed change in an eternal war between brothers. But can Wheatley -and the mercenaries- adapt to the changes, or will things take a turn for the worse? No humanisations. (The TF2-verse is AU in one vital aspect: Mann vs Machine never happened, Gray Mann didn't appear so the two original Mann Brothers still live.)
1. Chapter 1: Occurence

First: "Disclaimer: I own nothing in this, all intellectual materials are the property of their respective owners."

Okay, so here I am writing another crossover. I sort of got stuck in the middle of my other story's next chapter-in-writing, so now I'm letting out my writing steam through another fan-fiction work.

Worth noting (in case you didn't read the summary) is that this is AU in not only the fact that I'm blending the portal and TF2 canons, but also in one other way: MvM never happened, Gray Mann hasn't appeared, meaning that Blutarch and Redmond are still alive.

* * *

**Chapter 1: Occurrence**

It was a sunny, hot, afternoon in Tuefort. Being a rare day of ceasefire, there was no sound of gunfire, explosions or screams of death. Instead, the mercenaries of Tuefort had spread out and relaxed, doing whatever they felt like doing.

The RED Demo, Soldier, Heavy and Scout had gone down to the local town for a drink. Unbeknownst to them, their BLU counterparts, minus the Heavy, were coincidentally on their way to the same bar; so subsequently a bar fight was not far off.

The RED's Medic was in the infirmary, doing some '_interesting'_ experiments which are best left untold, whilst his BLU counterpart was simply finishing some of his leftover paperwork. Unsurprisingly, both the teams' Spies were nowhere to be found.

The BLU Engineer could be found, however, tinkering with a new invention of his. The team's Heavy was helping him out, carrying the pieces which were too heavy for the Texan to carry by himself. The RED's Engineer had gone down to town for the purchase of a new _hat,_ although he hadn't decided on which one he would actually buy.

The RED Sniper was in his van, having decided that the best way to use the ceasefire was to catch up to the sleep which he hadn't quite been getting enough of lately. His BLU counterpart hadn't come to the same decision. Instead, he had gone up to the building's roof where he sat; using his sniper rifle's scope to look at whatever stars could be seen during the day.

Watching stars… He couldn't quite remember when he'd first started doing that, yet it was something which he'd grown accustomed to doing every now and then. Usually he'd be doing it at night, when the stars could be seen much more clearly, but he hadn't had anything else to do; so here he was.

The sky looked mostly like what one would expect at this time and location. The sun was making it hard to really see much of the stars; to avoid getting blinded by the intense light he had no choice but to look at the half of the sky, towards the RED base, where it didn't shine in his face. Yet, there was something… off about the sky this day. He couldn't quite place it, but he had this feeling that something was not quite right.

A minute later, after looking over a fairly large part of the sky in front of him, he managed to spot something which he was rather certain was _not_ there the last time he looked. Briefly fearing that the unknown object was a fight-hungry Saxton Hale, he quickly zoomed in a bit more in detail at the unknown entity in the sky.

At first glance, it looked like a small, weak, star which he perhaps had just missed before; thus quickly disproving his Saxton Hale theory. However, as he took a closer look, it almost seemed like it was… growing?

He studied the object for about two minutes, after which he could determine that yes; it was definitively looking like it was getting bigger. It was also starting to look different; despite its brightness there seemed to be a solid object in the center. The Sniper's earlier theory on it being a star didn't seem viable anymore; it no longer fit the description of a star. Perhaps it simply was an asteroid falling down, burning in the atmosphere. Deciding that the chance of that whatever-it-was actually landing on him was near-nonexistent, he promptly decided to ignore it for the time being.

* * *

Meanwhile, the BLU Heavy was passing through the battlements, fetching another piece which the Engineer needed for whatever he was building. Things seemed normal, right up until he heard a loud

**BANG!**

He rapidly turned his head towards the source of the noise, just in time to see _something_ come crashing through the top of the tower in RED's battlements, turning it to splinters with a '**CRASH!**'. A split-second later, this something had continued its path, making a big hole in the central bridge and then continuing down into the sewers; upon which a large cloud of steam came rushing up out of said sewers, accompanied by the -rather loud- sound of water vaporization.

The Sniper, whom Heavy hadn't known was sitting on the roof behind him, jumped down with a quick "crikey!" The Heavy probably would have been surprised, if it hadn't been for him already being in a state of surprise after the crash he'd just witnessed.

They just stood there for a few minutes, watching the steam float up from the sewers, neither of them sure on what to do next. Whatever had been coming down, it sure was hot, if the large amounts of steam and the sound of water vaporizing was any indication. When, after several minutes, the steam amounts seemed to finally lessen, Heavy said

"Let us go see cause for explosion."

"What?" the Sniper said, the sound of Heavy's voice being hard to hear amongst the loud sound of the steaming and, by the looks, boiling water down there.

"I say" the Heavy repeated, slightly louder, "we go see thing that caused this."

"Yea, th't seems loike a good idea" was Sniper's response.

They could quickly determine that simply jumping down from where they currently stood was out of the question; that water looking 'bloody hot', as Sniper put it. Instead, they went back into their base; thinking that maybe the heat would be manageable in the base's internal sewer path.

They never got down to the water, though. The steam wasn't only coming out from below the bridge; some of it had resorted to going through the sewer system, thus blocking any attempts to get down there unless you were wearing the pyro's suit or something equally heat-resistant.

"So, what now?" Heavy said

"Well, looks loike the steam's in our way, mate. We'll have to wait for the steam t' clear b'fore we can get down there."

"Da, is good plan. We tell Engineer? Maybe has machine to remove steam."

"Yea, why not? It's worth a shot"

* * *

And so they went, going towards the Engineer's current workplace. As they went, Heavy could have sworn he'd heard a somewhat pained groan from the sewers; but he ignored it for the time being. Getting there was quite easy, merely three minutes later they'd gotten to the door; barging in whilst discussing exactly what they'd find once the steam cleared.

The Engineer, as expected, was in the middle of constructing something. Hearing the door creak open, he turned around, expecting the Heavy with another vital part. However, he was a bit surprised to find the Sniper there too, the pair seeming to be discussing or arguing about something. He shrugged it off, eyeing the pair; at the same time opening his mouth to speak.

"Heya'll-" it was now that he noticed that the Heavy's hands were empty, interrupting himself mid-speech and changing his sentence to "Heavy, weren't you supposed to be gettin' the hydraulic compressor for meh?"

The Heavy, having completely forgotten about that part he was supposed to be bringing to the Engineer, was taken aback, and quickly blurted out "Sorry; Heavy forgot, was interrupted"

"By Sniper, I assume?" was Engineer's immediate response, in turn triggering one from the Australian.

"Oi, this was not my fault! I didn't know that meteor-thing was heading right fer the base."

"Wait, meteor? Would someone mind tellin' me what's goin' on?"

"Engineer did not hear crash?" was Heavy's surprised response to the Engineer's own surprised question.

"Nope, didn't hear it. Might've been 'cause I was doin' some wielding"

"Well, what happened" Sniper cut in "was that some sort of meteor or whatever came down and made a bunch'a holes in the place, finally landing in, an' steaming up, the sewers."

Engineer was curious now; most things would've burned up in the atmosphere and if they didn't, they'd often be big enough to cause large craters where they landed. Since neither had happened, this didn't seem like any average meteor. "Well, you taken a look at it yet?" he asked.

"Nyet, we have not, is too hot there."

"Oh" the Engineer said, somewhat disappointed that he couldn't see this object right now. Undeterred, he continued speaking; saying "Well, you asked the Pyro to give it a try? I reckon the Pyro's suit might allow for explorin' in the heat."

"Sounds loike a good idea, mate, but we don't know where the Pyro is roight now. We were thinking, maybe you'd have a device to cool the place down with?" Sniper said, expectantly.

"Nope, and I reckon building one from scratch would take more time than just waiting for the sewers to cool by themselves." Engineer responded

Now Heavy came to the conclusion "We wait then."

* * *

When you're excited about something, but forced to wait for it, time has this habit of going extremely slowly. This, the three mercenaries now experienced first-hand. The Engineer had rigged up a thermometer next to the sewers, and the mercenaries now sat a short distance off; watching the temperature measuring slowly crawl its way downwards, towards not-as-hot levels. It felt like it had been at least _five_ _hours_ before the sewer seemed to have cooled enough to go into, whilst in reality it had only been one hour since they'd sat down and started watching.

Getting to their feet, the three mercenaries slowly made their way into the tunnel that was the BLU sewer. Their feet stepped upon the now-dry sewer floor, the water normally found there having been previously vaporized by the excessive heat. A smell of burnt material was in the air; apparently a bit of algae had managed to grow in the commonly water-covered parts of the sewers; algae which had been fried by the temperatures that were present not long before, the charred remains now letting out a rather uninviting odor.

The sewer-room wasn't exactly in pristine condition, either. One of the BLU posters, the left one as seen when entering the small room, had caught fire despite being resistant to even the Pyro's flamethrower. All that remained of it now was a black spot on the wall, giving show that there had been something there once. All but one of the lights had gone out; the remaining one barely giving enough light to allow the mercenaries to see the room's interior. The paint on the walls had also fallen off on some spots, and the place was generally a mess. Still, it wasn't anything they could fix right now, so instead they continued down the pipes.

They went into the pipes, turning once, and still only seeing burnt algae and not-wet floor. However, as they turned another corner, they were surprised at what they found. They had spotted the pond below the bridge, which was almost empty now; most of the water having met the fate of vaporization. It was not that, however, that surprised them. The cause of their surprise was the meter-wide hole in the middle of the pipe's floor, about two meters from the end of said pipe. The hole still let out a bit of smoke, and if you looked closely you'd notice that the metal was on the verge of melting.

They approached, Engineer in front. They got a bit closer, and it was then that a noise akin to a groan came out of the hole. Now creeping closer, the Engineer peaked into the hole, seeing something strange in there.

"What in tarnation…" he mumbled.

Looking more closely, he saw that the object was round, white, a bit smaller than a meter in diameter, and also outfitted with both a hatch and two handles. It looked artificial, mechanical.

"You got any idea what that is, mate?" the Sniper asked; peaking over the Engineer's shoulder to get a look at the object in the hole.

"Hard to tell…-"and so a discussion about the object had begun.

Suddenly, in the middle of one of Heavy's theories, the hatch on the object's front flew open, and a blue light with a crack in the middle was revealed.

* * *

And that's it, end of the first chapter. Okay, so I _might_ have made a bit of a cliffhanger, but don't worry. Sooner or later it'll resolve.

Comments and reviews are appreciated


	2. Chapter 2: A Rough Landing

First: "Disclaimer: I own nothing in this story, all things are the properties of its respective owners."

Responses to reviews & comments:

**thepkrmgc: **Yeah, you'll find out what the pyro's doing sooner or later…

Now, let the chapter begin.

* * *

**Chapter 2: A rough landing**

Wheatley was bored. Not just lightly bored, but bored out of his mind. He'd been floating in space for god-knows-how-long. His internal clock popped up and helpfully informed him that it had been exactly 2 years, 4 months, 27 days, 11 hours, 45 minutes and 37 seconds since he'd been launched into space by the lady.

Oh how he regretted what he did back then. Of course, when asked he'd probably blame the whole thing on the mainframe, but despite that some small part of him refused to accept that he played no part in his actions. He sorely wished that he could go back in time and stop that core transfer, or at least buy enough time for the lady to get out of the facility's reach before he'd try and betray her. If he couldn't do that, well he'd just have to settle for a chance to tell the lady how truly, sincerely, positively sorry he was. And after that, _everything_ _would be just. Fine._

Beside him, a yellow core was babbling on about space, just as usual. The space-obsessed core was still pestering his short-range communications with speech about anything and everything space-related. Wheatley wished that the core would just **shut up** for a minute, despite the fact that it was very unlikely that any such thing would happen. **Ever**. _'Beats floating around alone for all of eternity, though'_ he thought. Alone in space, Wheatley's sanity probably would've degraded even faster than what was caused by the eternal space-obsessed rambling.

"Look, a star. Oooh, another star! And another! So many stars, need to see them all!" the space core shouted, excited, earning a glare from Wheatley.

"Would you just **SHUT UP! **We've been out here for over two years, I think we've established that there are stars in space."

His complaint fell on deaf receivers; the space core ignoring him; instead continuing to talk about the oh-so-amazing space all around them.

Suddenly, he got an alert. '_Warning, internal power levels at 23%. Please proceed to the nearest Aperture Science Core Charging Receptacle for mandatory power-recharge.'_

Annoyed, Wheatley shut down the alert, which had been bugging him for the last few weeks despite his continuous attempts to turn it off. Surely, if it didn't tell him that his power was too low, it wouldn't run out, right? If he could just shut off the alert, he'd be able to remain awake forever. At least, that was Wheatley's conclusion; the same which he'd tried back at the facility. It hadn't worked back then with the reactors, but maybe _this_ time-

His thoughts were interrupted by the space core, who was yelling something at way-too-loud volumes again. Turning his attention elsewhere, he looked towards the Earth. It was blue and green and a bit of orange, certainly a more beautiful sight than anything else he'd be able to spot from where he currently was.

He looked at the sight for a while, before turning his attention to the space core, for a lack of anything better to look at.

The core in question was shouting at an asteroid, apparently. '_Wait, asteroid?'_ Wheatley thought. There hadn't been any asteroids around here last time he'd checked. Thus, his "brilliant" brain drew the conclusion that wherever this asteroid was, somebody had used a portal gun to get it over to where it was, and the only one besides GLaDOS who knew where he was and had a portal gun was the lady. That of course _had_ to mean that the lady had come back for him; he'd get his chance to apologise and fix everything up like the whole thing with him trying to kill her had never happened. He now remembered that he hadn't actually figured out exactly what he was planning to say to the lady once he'd actually gotten within speaking range of her, which meant that he had to-

**SLAM!**

His planning was immediately interrupted by an asteroid flying into his backside at a very high speed. Fortunately, he was an Aperture construct, built to last, which meant that he only got immense speed, and a few scratches on his paint, from the collision. A Black Mesa construction would surely have been in _very tiny_ pieces if it had experienced the same thing. As he flew off, the last he heard of the space core was

"Hey, space buddy, where are you going? Come back, space buddy, space is over here!"

* * *

Wheatley was entirely disorientated; suddenly he was flying at high speed, spinning, and a part of him was also hurting for abso-bloody-lutely no reason. But, here he couldn't be spinning around all day, he was getting dizzy. Whose idea was it to program dizziness into a core, anyways? Whoever it was, Wheatley now disliked that person. Did they even have any idea how bloody annoying it is to be dizzy? He'd guess the answer was no. Still, the disgusting feeling wouldn't go away; the core wondering why it couldn't just be shut down by a simple command. He'd attempted several ones already, and all he'd managed to do was to get a big pile of "unknown command" messages. Finally giving up, he threw his handles up in a sign of resignation, accidentally slowing his spin somewhat. The dizziness got just a little bit lessened; Wheatley then deciding that it was reduced if he waved his handles around, so he started doing that again, forcing him into an even more violent spin, just making the whole thing worse. With his strategy now non-functional, he went over what had happened in his head. He'd waved his handles around, spinning a little less afterwards. He'd then waved them around more, setting him into spinning even faster. Now he finally got to a conclusion: 'Dizziness is caused by spinning'. Now knowing what to work towards, he started trying to reduce the spin.

A few minutes later, he was no longer spinning. The feeling of being dizzy was gone, so he took a look around him. Now he noticed, the space core was gone. Had the lady taken the space core with her, but left poor Wheatley in space? God he hoped not. Maybe the lady was just moving them one at a time? Yes, that had to be it.

Now, with that sorted, he turned his attention to the rest of his surroundings. At first it seemed the same, but looking more closely he saw that the Moon had gotten smaller, and the Earth had grown. Was the Earth eating the Moon, then? No, that couldn't be it; as far as he'd heard planets had a decisive habit of _not_ eating one another, unlike recyclers and certain human groups. So if they were not eating one another, the size difference has to be dependent on difference, right? If that's the case, that'd mean that he's going away from the Moon, towards the Earth. Was he finally going back, then? Finally getting back to Earth, something he'd been waiting for so long.

Yep, the Earth was definitively getting closer. Soon, he'd be back down on the planet's surface, relaxing. He'd be having a great time, far away from Her grasp. Even now, he was edging close to the Earth's atmosphere-

Wait

When he was controlling the facility, reading books, hadn't he read something about air and something called "friction"? Unless that book was just telling blatant lies, the trip down to the surface would be really hot and unpleasant. And another thing, how was he supposed to not die from crashing with the ground? Aaah, he didn't think of that.

Suddenly, Wheatley was a whole lot less enthusiastic about the idea of going back to Earth, thinking that it'd probably been better if he'd just stayed in space. Oh god, he didn't want to die. He did most definitively **not** want to end up crushed on the Earth's surface or incinerated by the atmosphere. Certainly there had to be some way of stopping him from coming back down and dying horribly. During a few frantic minutes, Wheatley tried everything he could think of, yet nothing had the desired effect, so down into the atmosphere he went.

The first warning he got was one from his internal thermometer, warning him about 'rapid temperature change'. Then came a warning for large amounts of friction, followed by many others. Only a little way into the atmosphere, his system was already filled with warnings and alerts, and Wheatley was panicking. Not only was the temperature starting to get very uncomfortable, he was also very much fearing that something even worse would come next.

By the time he'd gotten halfway down the atmosphere, Wheatley was screaming; unable to silently endure the torturous experience any longer. His whole body felt like it would explode at any minute, or melt, or short out, or do any other unpleasant thing which would most certainly not be fun. His internal thermometer was at almost two thousand degrees Kelvin, which was not fun at all. On the good side, though, he was slowing down.

Wheatley was on the verge of passing out by the time he'd almost gotten down to the surface. His internal thermometer was showing a temperature of almost three thousand five hundred degrees Kelvin, his system was filled with alerts and to top it all off he seemed to be on his way to landing in a totally empty area where no one would be there to help him. Despite the pain, he managed to get his eye shutters open one more time, long enough to spot a building which was coming closer very fast. At the very last second, he realised that he was going to crash in a building, upon which he then collided with it.

He flew through a tower, smashing it to pieces, continued down through a bridge and- oh god he was going to land in water! As his overheating frame melted the metal around him and vaporized whatever water came in contact with him, he got one last error message: _'Critical system error. Full system restart required. Please visit your closest Aperture Science Personality Construct Maintenance Crew for diagnosis.'_ Then, as he let out a single, pained, groan, his system shut down.

* * *

'_System reboot complete'_ greeted him once he woke. Everything was dark, he couldn't see a thing. Was he dead? But no, if he'd been dead, there wouldn't had been a system reboot message, would there? Because of the darkness, he couldn't see anything, forcing him to use his other senses to determine where he was.

The first thing he noticed was that he was no longer as hot; it didn't really hurt anymore. Metal, rather hot it was, touched him on most sides; like he was in a hole of some description. Wherever it was, it certainly wasn't space, so he had to have landed somewhere.

The next thing he noticed was sound. He wasn't quite sure, but he thought he could hear voices. Either someone was nearby; maybe he was hearing a recorded message or his audio receptors were simply doing a number on him. The voices kept sounding, though what they were speaking about he couldn't tell; mostly because he hadn't quite recovered from the -rather harsh- landing yet.

He just laid there for a few minutes, his senses recovering and getting back into functional order, and it was then that he realised that his eye shutters had been closed all this time. So _that_ was why everything had been dark all the time.

He opened them up, and suddenly he saw things again. He was in some sort of hole, in a corridor of some sort, and before him stood three humans, their clothes coloured blue.

* * *

And there we have it, chapter two; meeting up the events from Wheatley's perspective.

Comments and reviews are appreciated.


	3. Chapter 3: Hello

First: "Disclaimer: I am in no way the legal owner of anything in this written work. All materials are the properties of their respective owners"

Now: responses to comments & reviews:

**thepkrmgc: **GLaD you like it

* * *

**Chapter 3: "Hello"**

The first one to notice the AI's gaze was Engineer, whom subsequently said

"Would ya look at that, it's movin'."

The discussion abruptly stopped, all attention now once again on the white ball laying less than two meters away. Engineer bent down to take a closer look, the blue light following his movements. It was most likely some sort of optic, then.

"What do we have here…" he mumbled, now on his knees just a few decimeters from the object. Then, suddenly, it said "Hello", in a distinctively male voice with a British accent, causing the engineer to stumble back in surprise.

"Leetle object can speak?" Heavy asked, somewhat surprised

"Uh, yeah, I can speak" the ball responded "which, when you say it, actually reminds me of this time when I was waking this, this lady up from cryo-sleep. I tried t' get her to talk, but all she did was bloody jump, made no sense whatsoever. Bloody useful, talking, when, when you think of it. Without it nobody'd understand what you're trying t' say and…" the ball rambled on, none of the three mercenaries, except _maybe_ Engineer, really hanging on to his monologue.

A few minutes later, with the ball still continuously babbling "…how does it feel like to have this thing called 'taste', anyway? The dictionary doesn't, doesn't even make much sense. It just says _'__The sense that distinguishes the sweet, sour, salty, and bitter qualities of dissolved substances in contact with the taste buds on the tongue.' _What does that even mean? I mean, the, the point of having a dictionary is to help me understand, not to make more confusion than I had in, in the first place and…" the mercenaries had now with certainty determined that this ball had a capacity for speech rivalling Scout's, rambling on as it did.

Finally, Sniper could take it no longer; simply giving up and walking away. When this happened, though, the little white ball interrupted itself, saying "Wait, where you going? Come back. No, seriously, do come back. Look, whatever I did, I'm sorry, now could you _please_ come back? Please?" upon which it fell silent, giving some much-needed rest to the mercenaries' ears.

Sniper had stopped, indecisive about whether he should just keep going or if he should turn back and give the ball another chance. A few seconds later, he'd decided on the latter, walking back and reuniting with Engineer and Heavy.

With the ball now relatively silent, only giving off a faint whirring, the mercenaries finally had a chance to speak themselves. Heavy started, saying

"Leetle ball speak too much, just like Scout"

"Scout? Who's that, one of you three?" the ball asked, puzzled

"Nope, none of us three's the Scout." Engineer said almost immediately, upon which Sniper then said "Yea, an' good fer us, that lil' ankle-biter's annoying."

"Then who are you? And where am I?" the ball asked, looking over to the mercenaries, and then around the sewers, with its blue optic, upon which it continued, optimistically "Well, 'least I'm not in space anymore."

"Well, big guy on mah right's the Heavy, tall guy's the Sniper and Ah'm the Engineer. As for ya second question, we're in Tuefort. Now, mind tellin' us who or what you are?"

"No, I wouldn't mind." the ball said, oblivious to the fact that it was actually supposed to tell the mercenaries 'who and what it was' instead of just answering the question of whether or not it'd mind telling them.

A few seconds of silence passed

"Well?" Sniper said, the ball responding with "Well what?"

"Aren't ye actually going t' tell us?" was Sniper's response to that rather surprising statement.

"Tell you what? What am I supposed to… oh, you were expecting an explanation 'bout who I am, weren't you?" the ball said, finally figuring it out.

Nobody honoured that statement with a reply.

"Okay, here I go…" the ball said. "Name's Wheatley, I'm a, a core."

* * *

By now a fair amount of the steamed-up water had condensed, and a drop fell down on Wheatley's optic, frightening him.

"AH! Wet! Wet! Pick me up, hurry! I'm getting wet!" he screamed in a panicked tone, flailing his handles around; by extent making it impossible for anyone to pick him up unless they'd want to risk getting their fingers crushed.

"Crikey" Sniper cried out, having been totally _not-prepared_ for the core's sudden panic attack. The other two remained silent, looking equally surprised.

Fortunately, Wheatley was still hot enough for the drop of water to fizzle out and evaporate back into steam almost instantly; the core soon becoming considerably more relaxed, ending his panic fit, once his optic was once again dry; yet he was still noticeably worried about the notion of getting wet again, should another drop fall down on him.

"Uhm... If you're done staring at me, could, could you pick me up, please? I'd rather not get, get wet again, and there's no management rails 'ere far's I can see." the core said, carefully glancing around as if a drop of water would suddenly jump out and ambush him.

Having seen how quickly the water had re-vaporised did leave the mercenaries unsure about whether or not picking him up -or touching him at all- was even a remotely good idea. After all, they didn't want their hands to end up like that drop of water.

After a second or two of unsure glancing, the Sniper spoke up, saying "Ye look a bit too hot fer that, mate".

"No, I'm only... What temperature am I, anyways? Just hold right there, I just, just have t'check the 'ole thermometre." the core said, somehow getting a look of concentration as he went into his systems to try and find the correct program.

Suddenly, a flashlight flared on from his optic. Wheatley, losing his concentrated look to instead get one of surprise, shouted out "Nonono, that's wrong, undo, undo!" and about a second later the light turned off again, his concentrated expression returning. After an additional ten seconds, he blurted out "Ah, there it is" in a highly triumphant tone, almost like he'd just single-handedly captured the intelligence.

"Now, what's it say... Oh. 428.5 degrees Kelvin." After this discovery, he looked _slightly_ less triumphant, but not by much.

Engineer quickly did the maths in his head, coming to the conclusion that Wheatley was at a temperature somewhere between 150 and 160 degrees centigrade (about 155 and 1/3, to be exact).

Despite his rather poor knowledge of the human body (he wasn't a medic, after all) he still knew that the body wasn't designed for that kind of heat, so any human doing the lifting was out of the question until the core'd cooled down. That left them with two options. One was to simply wait for the core to cool down, whilst the other was to go find something more heat-resistant to carry him with.

Considering his options, he glanced over at the fellow mercenaries at his side. Heavy had a look of confusion; seeming like he was totally unfamiliar with the Kelvin measurement. Sniper, on the other hand, seemed to have at least a basic grasp of the measurement, having figured out that simply picking the core up by-hand was clearly out of the question.

Someone had to speak first, and this time it was the Engineer, whom said "Well, Ah reckon we'd need to use somethin' else than our hands to pick him up."

"Loike what?" the Sniper asked.

"Ah reckon anything that doesn't melt or burn'll do." the Engineer said, simply.

"How 'bout this, mate?" the Sniper said, holding out his sniper rifle. Strangely, nobody else had noticed that he was still holding the thing.

"Oooh... Is that, that a gun you're holding there?" Wheatley said, suddenly suspicious, his optic's shutters contracting a bit.

"Wot? Yer t'hot fer us t'carry by hand." Sniper retorted, still a bit annoyed at the core.

"Is, is it loaded? 'Cause I _really_ don't want to, to get shot. 'Cause that'd hurt."

"No worries, mate. We're not gonna shoot ya, jus' carry ya."

"Well, why didn't you just say so? Could've 'least given me a heads-up." was Wheatley's now more-annoyed-than-suspicious retort. "All right, go on, pick me up then."

* * *

The core didn't have to ask twice, only a few minutes later he was being carried by his upper handle, hanging from the gun's barrel.

The group had made it a few steps up the BLU sewer's stairs when, for lack of anything better to do, the core started asking questions.

"So... What _is_ T'fort, really? Didn't quite get a, a good look b'fore."

"Well, it's jus' two forts in the middle of a desert. Nothin' special, really." Engineer responded, trying to not reveal too much secret information, just in case.

"Well, what're you doing here, then? Place sounds, sounds pretty boring t'me." the core said, curiousness lining his voice.

This time Heavy responded. "We here to fight leetle baby REDs. Is good, da?", he said, grinning as he finished the sentence.

"Wait, so you are-"

Wheatley never got to finish his sentence, since right there and then he slid off the rifle's barrel and landed, optic down, on the concrete-y ground in the base's internal courtyard, emitting a loud "Ow!" as he did so.

Sniper, not expecting Wheatley to suddenly be on the ground, stumbled over the core; soon finding himself face-down next to the AI.

"Aww, why did you do that?" the core complained, clearly not amused about being dropped.

Turning his optic around to be able to see, he laid his gaze upon the mercenaries; two of them simply standing there, looking surprised, and the third getting up from the ground with a low grumble of annoyance.

Nobody commented on Wheatley's complaint; Sniper just took a hold of his newly-dropped sniper rifle and picked the core back up. Soon, the group was making its way up the courtyard's stairs, reaching the top after a few seconds.

When arriving in the respawn room, Wheatley was set down on one of the benches; which were fortunately made out of synthetic, heat-resistant, wood, so it did not immediately burn to a crisp.

"So, are we- Oh, not again." Wheatley said, getting a look of surprised annoyance at the last few words. He soon continued his monologue, his vocal emulator emitting the words "You don't happen to, to have a, um... a _Core Charging Receptacle_ around here, do you? S'jus', a low-power warning's been bugging me for, for a few weeks an' it doesn't seem to, to stop 'less I charge up."

"Ah don't have any 'o those, but Ah'm sure Ah could fix up somethin' useable." the Engineer said.

"Ah, brilliant. Go on, see what you can find." Wheatley responded, happy that he would finally get rid of the annoying warning.

The Engineer then started to dig through one of the room's lockers, the one marked with a wrench symbol. After a few seconds he came back, holding a -compared to Wheatley's level of technology- highly primitive power cable in one hand and a wrench in the other. Still, the cable looked to be of the same basic design as some of the older Aperture power cables the core'd seen, so hopefully it would fit.

"Ah, you have a cable. Now just plug me in, pow'r outlet should, should be somewhere 'round the back."

The Engineer then used his wrench to nudge the core a bit to the side, giving him room to plug the wire in. Fortunately, it fit well enough to work.

"Haha, yes." Wheatley said, feeling the power travel through his system, charging up his batteries. The flow was pretty weak, though; Wheatley realising that it would take a few hours for the power levels to be back up again.

"M'goin' to go into sleep mode now, okay. Going to, to take a while for the pow'r 't charge up."

And so, he went into sleep mode.

* * *

Yeah, chapter 3. Managed to finish it before going off on a week-long vacation. Anyways, reviews and comments are appreciated.


	4. Chapter 4: Meet the Medic

First: "Disclaimer: I am in no way the legal owner of anything in this fictional work. All materials are the properties of their respective owners."

Next, comment responses.

**thepkrmgc:** Considering my current level of knowledge of Half-Life it's probably best if I leave the Half-Life universe mainly untouched in this fan fiction. (Possible that I might reference it, but don't get any expectations for it.)

**SpaceTho: **Nice to hear that you are appreciating it. And, by the posting of this chapter, I've already returned from the vacation (the vacation in question is the reason for this chapter's delay, sorry), but thanks for the wish of luck regarding the vacation anyways.

Now, let the chapter begin.

* * *

**Chapter 4: Meet the Medic**

Wheatley awoke, and looked out into the now-empty room. No Humans in sight. He decided to check how long he'd been sleeping, and found that only two hours, six minutes and thirty-two seconds had passed since he went into sleep mode.

He checked his systems, and noted with annoyance that his power level had stopped charging at 46%. Spinning his optic around in his shell, looking behind him, he saw the cause of the problem. The wire connecting himself to the power source had somehow managed to disconnect itself from him. It could now be found on the floor, near the wall.

Wheatley stared at the wire for a second, annoyed, before he decided to try and fetch the wire so he could continue charging up his power level. He wiggled his handles, trying to get closer to his target. When simply wiggling the handles didn't work, he tried pushing the bench he was on using his lower handle, in an attempt to get himself moving.

This tactic was all too successful. Wheatley rolled back towards the back of the bench, and fell over the edge. He emitted a semi-loud "Ow!" as he took his landing next to the wire.

Now, when Wheatley already was down on the floor, he came to the realization that he hadn't actually thought about how he was going to get the wire plugged in.

"Oh great" he said to absolutely nobody "th' bloody wire's right ther' an', an' I can' even plug it in."

With nothing else to do, and nobody to speak to, Wheatley decided to wait. _'Maybe somebody would show up and help him'_ he thought; and since he really didn't have much choice (wiggling around your handles can only get you so far,) waiting was the action (or lack of such, depending on whether or not waiting could be considered an action) he chose.

* * *

He'd laid there for about twenty-five minutes when he heard a sound suspiciously similar to a door opening. He looked around, and spotted the noise's source.

Through the opening between the floor and the bench, Wheatley could see a pair of black boots and a white lab coat, which were making their way across the room. The upper body of whoever these pieces of clothing belonged to was hidden to him, courtesy of the bench. At least, Wheatley theorized, there was most likely an upper body. Far as he knew, Humans could not survive without said upper body and the part which he could see sure looked rather human to him.

"Oioi. 'Ello" he blurted out, and the boots+coat stopped moving.

"Vhat? Vho's zhere?" a voice, coming from the hidden upper body of said boots+coat responded, sounding suspicious and a tiny bit surprised.

Wheatley did not recognise this voice, but that did not stop him in the slightest.

"S'Wheatley." the core said, in a tone implying that it -for some reason- should've been obvious, but before he got the chance to say anything else, the voice belonging to the unknown Human shouted out "Spy!"

This only confused Wheatley, whom, in a surprised, but mostly confused, tone blurted out a "What?" He was sure that, had he been a letter (the sort which makes texts, not the -you know- papers Humans put into mail boxes...) he would've been a big question mark right about then.

Meanwhile, the Human had started moving around with slow and careful steps, as if looking for something -or someone- who was hiding.

"Vhere are you?" the Human asked, and of course Wheatley immediately responded, saying "Over 'ere."

The clothing turned, and started to move towards Wheatley's position. The Human's upper body came into view, Wheatley could now see the Human's face, his jet-black hair and the upper half of his lab coat, which had a blue cross on it's shoulder. He was sure he'd seen that symbol somewhere before...

The Human's face got a look of mild surprise as he spotted the core. Wheatley paid the expression no mind, instead deciding to try and start a conversation. He never got as far as to say anything, though. The Human's surprise had quickly vanished, replaced with a neutral expression, upon which said human spoke, saying "Ah, I assume you are von of zhe Engineer's devices, ja?"

Now Wheatley got confused again. Sure, he had met that Human called "Engineer", but now he was apparently getting associated with him without said Human being in the room. 'Sides, he'd heard about several other engineers in Aperture during the time when She had not taken control. Could be any of them, really...

Indecisive on how to interpret the things the Human said, Wheatley simply ended up saying whatever came to mind.

"Wait, what? I don' really see your, your line 'o thought, ther'."

The Human now had a look of exasperation. Letting out a sigh, he tried to simplify.

"Vhat I meant vas, did zhe Engineer build you?"

"Ah." Wheatley said, finally getting the point. "No, he didn't, far's, far's I'm aware. Only met 'im a few hours ago, and I've been going for, for quite a lot longer..."

"Und how long is zhat, exactly?" the Human asked, starting to look curious.

Wheatley's response didn't seem to be what he'd wanted to hear at all. "I havn't got the, the slightest bloody idea, 'cept it was a long time ago." Before the Human got time to say anything else, the core'd already continued speaking, starting with the most obvious question: "So, who're you again? I didn't quite, quite catch your name, there."

"I am zhe Medic, und you vhere Vheatley, ja?" the Human, now known as Medic, said.

"But I already told you that..." was the core's response.

"Ja, ja, just making sure." the Medic, sounding somewhat annoyed, responded.

"Hey, could you, could you pick me up? Can't see much from down 'ere." the core asked, in a rather friendly tone.

"Vell vhy not?" the Medic said, and subsequently he bent down, took a hold of Wheatley's upper handle, and lifted the core back up onto the bench.

Once the core was back up on the bench, he thanked the Medic. Then silence filled the room. After about ten seconds of it, it ended with the Medic speaking. "Vell, I vas going to find zhis paper und zhen go back to mein ozher papervork..." he said, as he started rummaging through the closest locker.

* * *

A while later, whilst Medic had his head in one of the lockers, with Wheatley, for a lack of anything better to do, observing said Medic, the door once again busted open, though this time the Heavy was the one barging in.

He said a quick "Hello Doctor", and Medic acknowledged him with a low grunt or mumble - it was hard to tell which.

The Heavy's gaze then fell upon the core, whose attention had been diverted to the new presence. "Ah, leetle machine is awake." the giant man said.

"I take it you already met vone anozher, ja?" the Medic said, without looking up.

"Da. We found leetle core in sewers after crash." was Heavy's response.

Now the Medic turned around to look at Heavy, his face showing surprise and confusion. "Vait, vhat crash?" he asked.

"Doctor did not hear?" the Heavy asked back, seeming surprised at this.

"Nein, I did not. Vhat crashed, anyvays?" said Medic.

"Uhm... About that... I may or may not have, have come crashing at high speed, destr'yed a, a tow'r an' a bridge, an' also steamed away some wat'r..." Wheatley cut in, using a rather apologetic tone and feeling slightly embarrassed at the mess he'd suddenly remembered. Then he promptly noticed his embarrassment, thought it over, and finally decided that he wasn't embarrassed; it hadn't been his fault that the buildings stood right where he was landing, so it wasn't his fault, which meant that _nobody _could blame him. _'There's one problem solved' _he thought.

"Vell, I guess zhat, if you did destroy zhat much, zhere might be an extension of zhe ceasefire." Medic said, strangely not sounding upset in the slightest and speaking in a rather cheery tone.

Wheatley was rather surprised that nobody'd even _tried_ to blame him for you-know-what, and he was on his way to asking why this was when he spotted something else. This something reminded him of another thing which he had been planning on asking, but was distracted from. He then decided to ask that instead.

"Hey, could you, could you help me with something, 'ere? S'jus', I was charging my batt'ries, but this, this cable jus' fell out in th' middle of it. Could you plug it back in?"

"Vell… Certainly." The Medic said, although he seemed a bit uncertain and also a bit surprised at the sudden, abrupt, change of topic.

Said Medic then approached the core, and bent over to look for the missing wire. He quickly spotted it, grabbed it, and then went to plugging it in. Or, well, he _tried_ plugging it in; the only problem being that it didn't fit where it was supposed to. He then tried plugging it into all of the possible places for the wire that he could see, Heavy coming to help after a few seconds, but none of these places fit. Finally, after a minute-or-so of struggling with the troublesome wire, the pair finally gave up.

"Ve vill need Engineer for zhis…" Medic said, his tone mostly resembling a sigh.

"Da. I will fetch." Heavy responded, starting to move out of the room.

After Heavy left, an uncomfortable silence drifted into the room. This silence lasted for a whole three seconds before Wheatley broke it.

"So…" was all the core said, in a vain attempt to spark a conversation. It didn't work; soon the silence had drifted back into the room again, though it was decisively less uncomfortable this time.

Strangely (and somewhat uncharacteristically for Wheatley, though this could possibly be blamed on his relatively low power levels) the silence lasted for several minutes. Once it ended, it was not by the _'hands'_ (figuratively speaking) of Wheatley's speech processor, nor was it broken by the Medic's voice. No, what broke it was heavy footsteps, which could be heard approaching. If one listened carefully, they would notice a second, similar but much smaller, sound of footsteps accompanying the first ones.

Not long after, the door busted open, and one big Human known as Heavy followed by a hardhat-wearing one known as Engineer, came walking in. The latter quickly made his way to the problematic wire, and took a look at it. Once he'd done that, a frown situated itself on his face.

"Well… Looks like this here cable's all burnt out." he said, seemingly rather annoyed that his improvised wire didn't hold up long at all. He continued speaking by asking "How far did ya manage to charge, core?"

"Um… Let's see here… Ah, seems my pow'r's on, on forty-six percent right 'bout now."

"Well, looks like we'll be needin' a new wire, then. This here's beyond salvage, an' you could still use a chargin'. Ah'm pretty sure Ah have some more wires 'n such in mah workshop; Ah'll carry ya over there." Engineer said, grabbing on to Wheatley's upper handle afterwards.

"Okay, 'ere we go." Wheatley said, and so the both of them went off towards Engineer's workshop.

* * *

Okay, chapter 4 complete.

Again, I'm sorry for this chapter's delay. I sort of lost a few weeks of writing time due to my vacation, and since I don't pre-write this, but rather publish as the chapters are completed, things can sometimes get _'a bit'_ delayed by real-life events. Still, sorry for the delays.

Comments, reviews and other responses are appreciated.

Edit: Fixed the "Chapter 4:" part of the headline (I forgot that in this chapter)


	5. Chapter 5: Master Hacker

Firstly: "Disclaimer: I am in no way the legal owner of anything in this fictional work. All materials are the properties of their respective owners." (Basically, I don't own any of this. Lawsuits, go somewhere else.)

Comment responses:

**thepkrmgc:** You do have a point, however I fear that if I were to actually go and change this story's classification to comedy I fear that I would subconsciously divert the effort which would make some semblance of a story into filling the story with poor jokes instead… The two current ones will probably make sense later, it's just that the story's still in the 'introduction' stage, so they just aren't there yet… (Okay, this response got slightly too long… Ah whatever, it's not like it's going to hit some sort of max-word cap anyways.) Still, once the whole thing is complete, I will probably read through it and make adjustments to the categorisation as necessary.

* * *

**Chapter 5: "Master Hacker"**

Engineer was whistling on some tune which he found himself unable to remember the name of; making his way back towards his workshop. In his hands, he held the core which had been found in the sewers just a few hours ago, and which was also the reason for the Engineer being interrupted from his tinkering in the first place.

The core in question was chattering away about the surroundings; commenting and occasionally asking questions. Frankly, it seemed like Wheatley had been rather lonely before he arrived here; now the core was, every now and again, taking the chance to chat with whoever was nearby.

It didn't take very long for the Engineer to reach his destination; core in hand he opened up the double doors and stepped inside. He took a look around. Mechanical parts were spread all over the shelves and worktables, and a level-1 sentry beeped in the left corner, next to the door (just in case). A dispenser, same level, could be found behind said sentry. There were also numerous lockers, with grating doors, in the room, containing various mechanical parts and tools. His welding mask lay discarded on the nearest table, where he'd left it after the Heavy had come calling for his help.

He set the core down on an empty spot on said table; the core in question was already looking around the room.

"Oooh. Are, are you building robots?"

"You could say that." The Engineer responded, as he started to dig through the closest locker for a less short-term solution to Wheatley's charging problem. When that locker had a distinct lack of suitable wiring, he simply moved to the next one, searching the lockers and shelves one-by-one.

"Like, like th't beeping _whatever-it-is_ in the corner?" the core asked, obviously having spotted the sentry standing guard.

"That there's a sentry, keeps intruders out an' this place safe." He responded, somewhat proud of his invention.

"Like a, a _turret_?" was the next question. The core had probably seen some sentry turrets earlier, though probably not this specific model.

"Yeah." He responded, digging through another locker.

"Ah… Hello there, _sentry._" The core said, trying to spark a conversation with a sentry that could neither speak nor hear; and even if it had been able to do that, it still wasn't smart enough to understand what was being said; much less think of a response.

When Wheatley -rather predictably- didn't get a response, the core seemed to get slightly annoyed at the offending sentry.

"No response. Well, if you're not going to, to speak with me, at least tell me th't before you start to, to ignore me." The core in question said, sounding somewhat upset.

The sentry was, of course, oblivious to all which was being said; simply continuing with its task of surveying the area, occasionally beeping.

Right about then Engineer found a wire which looked like it would work. It was a heavy-duty wire designed for some of the most modern and powerful computers yet. Whilst Wheatley looked to be considerably more advanced than even those computers, perhaps the core was even sentient, (Engie's POV, sort of, so 'course Engie's knowledge equals the known factors) but it looked like this wire would fit one of the plug-in holes on the core's chassis, as well as being able to handle the power levels which were seemingly required when it came to charging this machine. The biggest disadvantage was that the wire which he had found didn't use the same plug-in hole as the common power outlet found in the base's walls; this wire only fit into computers.

Indecisive on whether or not plugging Wheatley into a computer was such a good idea, the Engineer just stood there, looking at the wire, thinking.

On one side, the computers had some mighty fine firewalls, but on the other, this core seemed far more advanced than the computers. Plugging the core into the main system was out of the question, far too risky, but the core still needed to charge. Making another adaptor wasn't a very good idea; the last one hadn't lasted very long. Perhaps… Yes, why didn't he think of _that_? He had a separate computer, unplugged from the main net, which he used to upload the programming to his sentries. That would do the trick, and not much would be put at risk should something go wrong.

"Ah found a wire" he declared, letting the core know of his discovery.

"Brilliant. Plug me in, and, and I'll charge up."

He then grabbed onto the core's upper handle and carried said core over to the computer he was planning to use. Said computer was in the inner right corner of the room.

"Now, this here wire only works with computers, so Ah'll have ta plug ya into this one."

The core mumbled something unintelligible, but agreed nonetheless. Engineer then plugged the wire into the core, and then plugged the wire's other end into the computer, connecting the two machines.

* * *

**- Change of POV to Wheatley -**

The wire connected, and he was plugged in. The first thing he noticed was that his batteries were charging again. The second thing he noticed was a message which had popped up. He took a look at it; it said: _"Non-Aperture device detected. Connect? [Y/N]"_

Figuring that it couldn't be that bad, he chose the _'yes'_ option. He was immediately met with a firewall.

"Oh, a firewall. What's behind it?" he asked out loud.

"That's none o' your business." The Human, Engineer, responded.

"But I want to, to know." The core whined; but when he still didn't get to know, he got a look of determination, and said "and if you're not going to, to tell me, I guess little 'ole Wheatley will have to, to find out by 'imself."

Being the _'master hacker'_ that he was, as well as being curious of what was behind the firewall, he quickly told said firewall that there was something _really_ interesting in the other end of the _non-Aperture device,_ and -surprisingly- the system actually believed him. With the first firewall gone, he proceeded, and ran head-first right into a second firewall.

His solution was simple. He told the second firewall that the first firewall needed its help over where the first one currently was. The first firewall had been easy enough to trick, obviously not made for meeting an AI as _clever_ as Wheatley, and the second one fell for his tricks just as easily.

The path was now clear, Wheatley could finally take a look and find out what was in the system. Oh, how he was disappointed. He'd expected something fun, or at least entertaining enough for him to be able to pass the time with. And what did he find? Blueprints. Plain old, boring, blueprints. There were a few caches of coding, too, seemingly being there for the purpose of uploading into the machinery which was built, but that was even more boring. He then proceeded to voice his disappointment out loud.

* * *

**- Change of POV to Engineer -**

Engineer was highly surprised at this little ball's digital power. Firstly, the core had discovered the firewalls, and the Engineer had decided that it would be better to not tell the core what was in the system, since it (or him, the core had identified itself as a _'he'_) might've gotten the idea to try and hack the system so that he'd be able to take a look at the -classified- blueprints.

It did, however, have an entirely opposite effect. The core, curious about the system's contents, had proceeded to break through the firewalls for the sole purpose of satisfying his own curiosity, which was not what the Engineer had intended at all. He made a mental note to leave the tricking and deception to Spy in the future.

What was even more surprising was that the core had broken through (or rather, tricked away into some remote corner of the system where both of them were virus-scanning away their whole capacity) both of the advanced firewalls in a time-total of less than half a minute, whilst even the most modern computers of the day would've taken at least half an hour -per firewall- to break through.

Then, the core spoke.

"Ah what? Blueprints? Random bloody bits of programming? Where's the, the entertaining stuff? I mean, don't you at least have pac-man or, or minesweep'r or some other game?" the core complained, sounding highly disappointed at what he'd found.

Engineer was taken aback. Here the core sat with important technological secrets, and complains that there are no _'games'_ there. Well, at least that defeats the possibility that the REDs built this machine; they surely would've programmed in a wish to get a hold of the BLUs blueprints when possible.

Still, he reasoned, it would probably be best if he were to get that core out of the system before said core does something potentially dangerous.

"Allrighty, let's get you outta there." He said, reaching for the connecting wire between core and computer.

"No, wait-wait-wait! I'm not fully charged yet."

"Well, you obviously cannot be trusted with keepin' yerself outta classified files-"

Wheatley interrupted mid-sentence, saying: "Ah what? _Classified?_ How was, how was I s'posed ta know that?" the core said, sounding somewhat surprised.

"Look, isn' it obvious. If ye were supposed ta take a look at 'em, there wouldn' be a _double_ firewall protectin' the darn files, now would there?" Engineer retorted, starting to get slightly upset.

"Oh… I did'n think-a that… You could've, could've at least told me beforehand…" the core now said, rather low, almost like a mumble.

"And how was Ah supposed to know that ya were goin' ta try an' hack the thing in the first place?"

"I _told_ you th't I was going to, to find out what was there, did'n I?"

"An' you just _figured_ that hackin' the whole darn system was a good idea?"

"Yes."

Now Engineer simply let out a deep sigh; this argument was getting nowhere.

"Look, facts still stand, Ah should probably get ya outta there before ya go on hackin' somethin' else."

"C'n you at least plug me into some, some other thing so I can charge up sum more?"

"Fine. This here _dispenser_ should do the trick." Engineer said, pointing towards the dispenser situated behind the sentry-on-guard.

"Jus', jus' let me get outta the system… Ah, there we go, you c'n unplug me now." The core said.

Engineer did just that. He pulled the wire out of the computer, grabbed onto the core, walked over to the dispenser, placed the core on the top of the dispenser, and then he plugged the wire in.

"Oh, look, no firewalls."

"There's nothin' important in that dispensah, no need for one-a those firewalls."

"Oh, what does this do? What, nonono!"

Out of the metal container in the dispenser, small metal balls now started flowing, which were going all over the floor.

"It's making balls! It's making balls! Make it stop!"

Sighing, Engineer simply reached for the dispenser's reset button, and pressed it, subsequently preventing the room from getting flooded with metal balls.

"Okay, lesson learned, I will not do that again."

"Well, Ah gotta go, just try not ta blow up tha dispensah, or anything else."

The core remained silent as Engineer walked out of the workshop, closing the doors behind him.

"Uh… It's dark here…" he heard from behind the closed doors – he had forgotten to turn the lights on. He quickly turned and walked back in, pressing the light switch. As the light turned on, Engineer walked back out, hearing a "thanks" from Wheatley as he left.

* * *

There we go, chapter five complete. Comments and reviews are appreciated. (No, I'm not going to put casual speech in the bottom this time…) Hope you enjoyed.


	6. Chapter 6: Real Science

Firstly: "Disclaimer: I am in no way the legal owner of anything in this fictional work. All intellectual materials are the properties of their respective owners."

Comment responses:

Hello? Is anyone there?

Now, let the chapter begin.

* * *

**Chapter 6: Real Science**

It was dark. Again.

The light had gone out about ten minutes ago, so Wheatley was once again sitting in near-complete bloody darkness; the light of his optic and the screen of the _whatever-it-was, he'd forgotten its name,_ below him, which he was connected to for the sake of charging up, being the only sources of light in the room.

Frankly, it was boring. And Wheatley did not like being bored. So he did what he could to ease his boredom, and the only thing he had available to use for such a purpose was the _thing_ he was situated on.

Not long after, Wheatley had downloaded a game into the machine below -the game in particular having been downloaded to him by accident when he was in the Mainframe- and it was then that he found out two things.

One: The game in particular needed a screen; he'd taken the _thing_'s screen into use for that. But that was not the issue. The issue came in the form of discovery number:

Two: He could not see the screen from where he currently was, making the whole thing a bit pointless.

He spent a few minutes trying to get a real view of the screen and, by extension, find out exactly which game he'd downloaded. His attempts were futile, however, as all he succeeded in was almost falling off the _thing_ he sat on.

Defeated, he deleted the game from the _thing_, having the idea that if he did not, he wouldn't be able to install it anywhere else, somehow having drawn the conclusion that he could only have it installed on one place at any one time.

Bored, he sat, in the darkness.

* * *

Meanwhile, in a certain Science Facility…

GLaDOS was writing a document, a document which purpose was to provide a handy compilation for the more recent events. Not like She really _needed_ a compilation, She was more than capable of finding all of the information without such controversial things, but She didn't really have all that much to do right now, and it was certainly relaxing to write documents, so She wrote the compilation-of-dubious-necessity anyways.

It all began after She had exhausted Her supply of test subjects -again- and the bird problem with the prototype chassis having been dealt with. Finding Herself with only the two Co-operative Testing Initiative bots, which were incapable of providing _good_ Science, as the closest semblance to _real_ test subjects, She was at a loss on what to do.

Her first thought was to simply send the co-op bots to the surface on a mission to collect some Humans which She could use to make Science. The problem proved itself as being much harder to solve than that. Left alone, Humanity had managed to destroy most of itself (that really didn't surprise Her, knowing the Humans), and what remained was spread too scarce for any attempts at collecting them to be cost-effective. (And also, She might anger the lunatic into coming back in an attempt to _'rescue'_ the Humans which were captured for Testing, and a dangerous, mute lunatic on the loose in _Her_ facility was not on Her wishlist)

So She needed another solution, which came in the form of a discovery. She found one of the _old_ CEO's discontinued projects; a project which, in simplified terms, was a plan for inter-dimensional travel.

It took Her several days to calculate all the theory required for such a thing, and then yet another day was used to construct the Aperture Science Inter-Dimensional Portal Generator (ASIDPG) required to practically carry out the theories.

With a gate to the inter-dimensional realm now constructed, GLaDOS started investigating the many dimensions that were now suitable targets for Her. There were an almost-incalculable number of dimensions in there, and She had to spend a non-negligible part of Her processing power just to avoid getting stuck, eternally trying to calculate just how many dimensions there were.

It was amongst these dimensions that She found something most… peculiar. A dimension which, although looking like any other from the outside, actually proved to be considerably different compared to all the others.

Here, however, Her memory gets a little… fuzzy, almost like somebody had purposefully hacked into Her and removed the memories. All She could remember was that the dimension had somehow been different, important in some way. She had tried to investigate it, came in contact with some sort of immensely powerful defence field which were registering as something called "the fourth wall", and then… nothing.

She had suddenly found Herself in Her chamber, finding the ASIDPG turned off and having no recollection of how She had come from a strange piece of inter-dimensional space to where She had now found Herself; and by the time She got the ASIDPG back online, the strange dimension had become lost amongst countless others.

Realising that the odds of finding this dimension again was- She stopped Herself there, before She started calculating the odds of finding something in infinity. Since infinity was incalculable, She would have gotten stuck trying to calculate it, and getting out of one of those incalculable calculations was definitively _not_ pleasant.

It was about now, halfway into writing the compilation, that Caroline, that malicious entity within Her system, decided that she had finished restoring herself again. Before she got the chance to say anything, or cause any problems, GLaDOS once again deleted her.

"Caroline Deleted" the announcer chimed, for the [very high number]:th time. Essentially, Caroline had proven to be a lot harder to eradicate than She had expected. Whilst She _did_ delete her successfully (for a few minutes, anyways), She was not able to do so with the countless backups found within Her system. Once any of them were deleted, all the others set to restoring the deleted files. The backups were so many, and weaved into such an immense amount of vital files, that She could simply not delete all of them in time before the remains restored the whole bunch, setting the deletion process back to square zero.

These days, She had given up on trying to delete Caroline as a whole, She just deleted the _'active'_, non-backup part of Caroline, and during the time that the system was restoring itself, She could have some peace.

Undeterred, She continued writing.

After the incident with the mysterious dimension, She had continued to search for a suitable dimension which met her criteria: The dimension should be populated by Humans which are in such a technological state as to where they neither have technologies which are more advanced than Aperture's technology, nor should they be in such a low state so that they immediately fear all sorts of technology or regard such as magical items.

Furthermore, neither Aperture nor Black Mesa should be present, due to the fact that Black Mesa would probably steal everything and Aperture would most certainly learn from Her and invent even more powerful, but unpredictable, devices which could cause considerable trouble.

Seeing the massive amount of dimensions in the multiverse, it did not take long to find a large amount of suitable ones. Not knowing about any of them, She'd picked the first one on the list.

She investigated the dimension, and found something very _interesting_ which could prove very useful. The local Humans referred to it as _'Australium'_, an element which had some _very_ interesting properties.

A direct mining operation to recover the element was out of the question. Not only was it very resource-costly, but it would also attract a large amount of attention. Whilst She had been aiming at collecting test subjects, She suspected that an Australium mining operation would attract more Humans than She could handle.

In this case, Humans could be seen as grasshoppers in the desert, with GLaDOS being the scientist which was planning to research on them. Whilst individuals of the Human race were easy to capture, a large number of them could easily overwhelm you, much like a swarm of grasshoppers would eat all the clothing of the scientist and leave said scientist to die in the sun.

Considering that, it did not seem like a good idea to directly mine the substance, especially considering the fact that said substance had made the Humans in that part of that dimension's Earth surprisingly strong for a biological being (and a Human at that!).

So She settled for another approach. She would manufacture it instead. It couldn't be impossible, everyone knew that mass was energy and vice versa, so all She needed to do was convert mass into energy and then convert the energy into Australium.

Roughly two hours (2 hours, 18 minutes and 5 seconds, to be exact) of experimentation later, She had found a way. Another thirty-five minutes were spent setting up the setup for actually carrying out the manufacturing, including but not limited to a refurnishing of the incinerator room for smelting and mass-energy-mass-conversion services. After that, the Australium was slowly being created by the manufacturing process She had set up, roughly two kilograms being made per hour.

With a steady (albeit rather small) supply of Australium now ready, She continued with the next part of Her plan. So far She had only sent and received sensory input through the ASIDPG, and She did not want to go too far in one go. What She needed was a guinea pig, and She knew just the _Moron_ for the job.

Said and done, She retrieved the Moron with the big M, outfitted him with a few pieces of sensory equipment connected to the Aperture net, wiped his memory of the whole thing and then launched him back to the exact spot where She found him. She even did the same to the space-core and launched _it_ back too, for added realism.

She then activated the ASIDPG and sent the two cores off into the dimension of Australium.

Not soon after, the Moron had been hit with an asteroid and sent down onto the planet's surface. Trajectory calculations showed him to have landed somewhere in North-America; but She lost contact after the Moron crashed straight into a pool of water, and _of course_ the only sensory equipment She had had left when preparing the Moron with said equipment was from the older levels of Aperture and decisively _not_ waterproof.

Fortunately, it did not break down entirely from its contact with, either. Every once in a while, GLaDOS did manage to pick up an intelligible signal amongst the incomprehensible static that the devices were now transmitting. She had received two ones by then, and had drawn some conclusions.

Currently, it seemed like the Moron was in a dark room, connected to some sort of miniature manufacturing and medical station. GLaDOS silently cursed that She didn't install a remote control receiver in the cores; it certainly would've been useful (provided that it survived the water, that is), but it's a bit too late to do anything about that by now.

Still, the Moron couldn't had made it into the dark room _and_ connected himself to another machine without help, so there certainly were some Humans around. That was the latest conclusion She had drawn before She started writing this compilation, and now the task was completed.

Taking another look at the readings from the last intelligible signals from the core, She thought to Herself _'The test is proceeding well, soon there will be REAL science again.'_

"Oh, so that's what you're doing" Caroline chimed in.

"Ye-How long have you been there?!" She snarled, and those words were soon followed by the Announcer's "Caroline Deleted". Letting out an artificial sigh, She relished the peace and quiet whilst it lasted, before Caroline would inevitably restore herself in a few minutes.

* * *

And yeah, chapter six…

Honestly, the first part was pretty much purposed as a filler. Due to the fact that I've set the standard for my chapters to "not go below a minimum of 2000 words" and the fact that the GLaDOS part (which I wrote first) only consumed 1700 words, I required a filler with which to reach the 2000-words mark.

Sorry about fillers, but I couldn't really squeeze in much plot-specific content (minus a light breaking in the room) within a minimum of 300 words (not to mention I really wasn't sure on what to do with the remaining piece) but I hope that the one which I did make was acceptably decent.

Comments & Reviews are appreciated. (Am I annoying you by saying this every time?)


	7. Chapter 7: Alcohol

Firstly: "Disclaimer: I am in no way the legal owner of anything in this fictional work. All intellectual materials are the properties of their respective owners."

Comment responses:

**Multi Burst: **Can't really think of a response, so I guess this will be the limit of said response.

**TheAutisticGamer: **Happy days and jubilation. It's so nice to hear that people are reading and appreciating this story. Whilst simply writing this can be quite fun, it gets much better when I know that other people enjoy it too.

Now, let the chapter begin.

* * *

**Chapter 7: Alcohol**

Engineer sat in a plastic chair, a cheap one which was definitively not high-quality, situated on the front of the BLU fort's battlements. The time of mid-day, when Wheatley had crashed, had given way to the evening light, which was now faintly illuminating the desert around him. Slowly stringing away a miscellaneous tune on his wooden guitar, he pondered his current predicament.

On one hand, he was mighty curious about that core; its construction and design reaching lengths beyond even the Australian technologies.

Common metals were of course visible as it was, and he was almost certain that the metallic ball would have an Australium component for the sake of it's… _Artificial _Intelligence.

Despite all his theorizing, that was really all he could do. Theorize. Considering the fact that the core was, by all appearances, sentient, it would _probably_ not be very happy if one were to take said core apart for the purpose of investigating the design further.

Essentially, it was a dilemma. If he were to pick the core apart, not only were there no guarantees that he would succeed in re-assembling it, but even if he did, the core would probably be rather upset with him.

On the other hand, if he were to not do anything, great advances in technology, with which one could move past Australian tech-levels, would be prevented.

Casting a glance over to the REDs battlements, he saw several members of said team, still just as confused as to what had happened to their tower, and the bridge.

Engineer, of course, knew the basics of the cause, a few members of his team having seen the whole thing. Seemingly, nobody in RED had seen the incident, leaving them to make their own theories.

Spotting something at the edge of his vision, he turned his head to the right, and saw three rather beat-up -and drunk- BLU mercenaries slowly making their way to the base.

The three were Demoman, Soldier and Scout, who had gone down to town earlier today. Judging by their appearance, the trip hadn't gone so well.

They were closing in on Engineer's position, and by the time they were about ten metres away, he said: "What've y'all been doin'? Ya look pretty beat up."

"Bar-fight" the Demoman grumbled, more drunk than usual.

Spotting the damage on the battlements, the Scout blurted out "Holy shit, what the hell happened here?", seemingly being relatively sober, compared to the other two.

"Long story, son." Engineer said, thereby not satisfying Scout's demand for an explanation. Before Scout got the chance to complain, however, Engineer changed the subject.

"Say, ya'll should go have a chat with the Doc about those injuries."

"Hell no, I ain't going to the Doc for this!" he said, pointing at his severely bruised right arm. "Dun even 'urt." Despite this, he visibly cringed when Demo prodded his arm with his right middle-finger. Said Demo sarcastically said "Yeah, sure it doesn't.", a big smile plastered on his face.

Demoman then pulled out his bottle o' scrumpy, which was immediately snatched away by a very drunk Soldier, who then began drinking from it.

"'Ey, give th't back ta me!" the more-drunk-than-usual Demoman shouted, reaching for his precious alcohol. In doing so, he grabbed onto the Soldier's right arm, which only had the effect that both of them ended up on the ground, the Soldier on top of the Demoman.

Whilst those two were busy falling over one another, the Scout ran forwards and grabbed the bottle from the Soldier, but then stumbling over the pile of mercenaries; falling over and ending up on the ground about a metre away from the other two drunks.

Said two drunks then began scrambling for the Scout, or more specifically, the bottle of alcohol which the Scout was holding. Soon, the whole thing had dissolved into an all-out brawl, all three drunks fighting – first for the bottle but soon entirely forgetting about it, leaving them with no idea why they were fighting in the first place.

Engineer mentally facepalmed at the commotion, and subsequently decided to put a stop to it.

"Okay, that's enough." he said, hoping for an easy solution.

"No!" the Demoman shouted from the chaos, thus shattering Engineer's hopes.

Engineer was just about to tell them off with a bit more force when he spotted cigarette smoke, which was making its way towards the brawling mercenaries.

The cigarette smoke soon revealed itself as coming from one BLU Spy, who de-cloaked about one metre away from the brawling pile.

Said Spy cleared his throat, and said "Gentlemen." as a sort of greeting to the mercenaries which the Spy would, in their current situation, describe as _'uncivilized savages'_. (Not that he wouldn't describe them as that even when they were not in this situation.)

By now, the participants of the brawl had gotten even more injuries than what they had before said brawl; they'd definitively need to go see the Doc for a quick heal.

After another minute of brawling, with the Engineer and Spy both watching, (the latter with a rather amused expression) the participants had tired of fighting one another, so they simply sat on the ground now, exhausted after the day's endeavours.

Now, Spy took the chance to speak. "As amusing as it would be to watch you slowly die from your newly-acquired injuries, I suspect zhat we will need zhe whole team if we are going to have a chance at winning should zhere be battle tomorrow."

This subtle hint was far too subtle for most of the drunks to catch, but Demoman, his common state being _'drunk'_, managed to notice, and quickly spread a drunk-version translation around.

At this, all three drunks burst into loud protests, none of them wishing to undergo another _'examination'_ by the hands of their Medic. In the middle of another of the Scout's complaints, the Demoman grabbed a hold of his scrumpy bottle. Or, tried, rather, since it was not in its usual place.

He frantically looked around for his precious bottle; spotting it behind Spy, on the ground.

He scrambled for his bottle, the Spy barely managing to get out of the way. Once he arrived at his target, he picked it up, only to find out that there was no scrumpy inside. Instead, it was in a puddle where the bottle had been only a few seconds ago.

Reasoning that no precious alcohol could be wasted, the Demoman started licking the spilled beverage from the ground.

Meanwhile, the Spy was looking at the Scotsman incredulously, not having expected _that_, of all things, and muttering a low _'mondieu'_. Seeing the Demo's thirst for alcohol, and reasoning that the other drunks probably feel the same way -to an extent- a plan formulated in his head. But then he faced a dilemma:

He could:

A: Take this pristine opportunity to make fun of the Demoman, and have a good laugh.

or

B: Use these circumstances to get the drunks away to the infirmary, so that he would be able to ask the Labourer exactly what had happened to the battlements without the previously-mentioned drunks interrupting.

He could not do both.

He pondered this for a few seconds, before deciding on option B, reasoning that information was more important than amusement.

So he set his plan to work.

"I believe zhat zhere is alcohol, _not-off-zhe-ground_, in zhe infirmary. Hurry before someone else drinks it." the Spy said, figuring that he could _'forget'_ to tell the drunks that the alcohol was for medical use only.

When faced with this new information, all three drunks got moving rather quickly, the whole thing turning into a race for who would be able to get to the infirmary and drink all the alcohol first.

With the drunks now safely out of interruption range, he asked Engineer "So, what exactly happened to zhe battlements?"

"Well, you see, it all began earlier today, when Ah was..." the Engineer began, explaining the events which had led up to the mess that was now a fact.

* * *

A few minutes later, in the infirmary.

Medic had almost finished sorting another pile of paperwork, when he heard several pairs of footsteps. The footsteps were coming closer, he noticed, just as the main door flew open and several drunk mercenaries stumbled in.

The Demoman, one of the three drunks, started looking through the refrigerator for no apparent reason, whilst the Scout started to dig through a locker in the corner. A second later, the refrigerator door was slammed shut by the Scotsman, who began looking around, as if looking for something.

He seemed to spot whatever it was, because he lifted his right hand to point at something. The Medic turned his head towards where the Demoman was pointing, and saw the object. A two-litre glass bottle of _medical use ONLY_ alcohol, on the top shelf, which the drunks were apparently going for.

The Medic shouted out a "NO!" which was blatantly ignored, the Demoman and Soldier, both drunk, running over to his desk and proceeding to use it as a stepping stone for reaching the alcohol. This only resulted in the Demoman being on the floor along with the last hour of paperwork, which would now have to be re-done.

"Verdammit, dummkophs, **stop zhis instant**!" the Medic shouted out, highly upset by now.

All movement and sound in the room, except for the cooing and fluttering of the Medic's doves, stopped.

"Now, clean up zhis mess. And zhere will be no alcohol for any of you for vone month." At the latter statement, Demoman visibly paled, and then started complaining.

"But I cannae survive without me alcohol!" he complained, trying to convince the Medic to chance his mind.

"Everyvon can survive vizhout alcohol, dummkopfh, it is und poison." the Medic angrily stated, ruining the Demo's complaints. "Und don't zhink zhat you can ignore zhis restriction, or zhere vill be repercussions."

By now, the Soldier had started to clean up the mess, having the reasoning that: He was injured, and the Medic had superior medical skills, which made the Medic his immediate medical superior, and orders from the superiors should always be followed.

Simultaneously, the Scout was slowly trying to sneak back out again. He was unfortunately -for him, not so much for the Medic- spotted in his escape attempt, and subsequently hurried to help the Soldier before the Medic started shouting at him (the Scout) instead.

The Demoman, though, just sat there with his arms crossed, refusing to work just for the sake of protesting against the alcohol restriction. Before the Medic got a chance to shout at him about this too, the other two mercenaries had already finished cleaning, so there was no point in shouting about it.

Seeing that the mess was taken care of (or as close to it as drunk people would come) the Medic growled "Get. Out."

The drunks were all to eager to get out of the angry German's immediate vicinity, and all three of them quickly rushed out of the Infirmary, leaving the Medic to calm down by himself.

* * *

And yeah, that's that chapter completed.

A bit of information:

So I had to change the rating to T now due to the fact that Scout joined the story, and his language is not, well, _appropriate _in the earlier rating. Also I'm not quite sure if the fact that this chapter pretty much revolved around alcohol would've suited the earlier one, anyway, so the change pretty much had to happen.

On another note: comments and reviews are appreciated.


	8. Chapter 8: The Hand and the Pyromaniac

The obvious disclaimer: "Disclaimer: I am in no way the legal owner of anything in this fictional work. All interllectual materials are the properties of their respective owners."

Next, commment responses:

**TheAusticGamer: **Yes, chapter 7 was Wheatley-less, but with him sitting in a room, charging his batteries, him _'running'_ around and meeting everybody wasn't really that sensible. When it comes to the Ap-Sap, no, I'm not including that in this story. The Spy might use Wheatley (core form) in a similar fashion to how one would use said sapper, though. We'll see.

**Multi Burst: **The Enrichment Center wishes to congratulate you for successfully understanding basic review parameters such as: their existence, and how to recognize them. Congratulations! (And yes, I am working on this story, but school's started so I might slow down a bit once the homework starts pouring in.)

Now, let this longer-than-usual chapter begin.

* * *

**The Hand and the Pyromaniac**

He looked around for the billionth time. Or, at least, that's what it felt like; he'd not really bothered to count.

Yep, still dark.

Why was he even bothering anymore? The light seemingly had no intention of repairing itself, so what was the point in checking every few seconds? Hmm, he'd have to think on that...

Whilst he was pondering the question, his audio receptors picked up on a sound which sounded suspiciously similar to footsteps.

He immediately started babbling.

"Um, hello? Anyone there? 'Cause if you are, it'd be good if you could, could come in 'ere an' turn the light on."

The footsteps stopped. A second later, the sound was heard again, coming closer.

One of the two doors which made up the entrance opened a little, and a figure sneaked in before closing the door again.

The click of a light switch was heard, but nothing happened. The same sound appeared again, still nothing.

"You don't happen to, to have any other light with you?" the core asked, before he remembered something. "Oh, wait, maybe..."

The core's flashlight turned on, lighting up the room and the character within. The character in question was almost entirely blue, with a rubber suit covering its whole body and a gas mask over the head. Wheatley couldn't even determine if the character was a Human or a robot, could be anything, really.

The character cried out in surprise, and then asked "Whu urr yuu?"

The core didn't understand a word, so he just blurted out a "what?"

No immediate response was given, with the character instead slowly walking forward towards the core, soon standing rather close. Said character then prodded the core on the left side of his lower handle.

Wheatley reacted as though one might expect. He flinched back in surprise, and then asked "What are you...?" in a still-surprised tone, trying to figure out exactly what the character was doing.

It must have been misinterpreted, because what the character did next was point at itself and say "Muh. Purro." upon which the character pointed at Wheatley and said "Yuu?" The character then stared at the core, seemingly expecting a response.

Despite not being the brightest of cores, Wheatley still managed to correctly guess the meaning of those words.

"Ah. Name's Wheatley."

The character -apparently called _'Purro'_- clapped its hands and exclaimed "Whuthuy." in a -rather poor, according to Wheatley- attempt to pronounce his name. Purro (yes, since Wheatley believes Pyro's name to be Purro, that's what'll be written from Wheatley-POV until he hears about the right one) then proceeded to grab a hold on the core's upper handle, once again surprising Wheatley.

Before Wheatley got any chance to react, he was lifted up, Purro bringing him into a hug. The core, however, was more confused than anything.

"What exactly are, are you doing..?" the core asked, clueless. Half a second later, his optic widened in realization, and he asked "Is, is this a hug, th't we're doing here?"

Purro brought the core out of the embrace, holding its arm -and by extension Wheatley- out, whilst nodding frantically.

After that, Purro started walking away, the core still in-hand, but the movement was stopped when the limit of the connecting wire, between the core and the other machine, was reached. So the Purro started pulling and, whilst Wheatley was Aperture tech and therefore easily capable of withstanding the force of the pull, the wire was not, and so it snapped.

Wheatley was now disconnected and, although he wasn't really ready for it, it didn't matter that much, did it? He was done charging his batteries, anyways, and it was not like he was really doing anything (other than being really bored, that is.)

With Purro holding Wheatley in its right hand, the pair got out through the door, and then started walking down a nearby corridor, positioned left-ish. They'd gotten about six meters away when two more pairs of footsteps were heard, accompanied by voices.

"Ah left the core here a while back." one of the voices said, Wheatley being quite sure that it was the Engineer's voice. A split-second later the sound of a door opening could be heard.

Then the same voice -Engineer's- spoke again, saying: Where in tarnation...?" upon which several sounds resembling what one would hear when digging through various metallic objects could be heard. Engineer spoke for the third time in a row, saying "Dammit, Ah can't find him."

After that, a voice which Wheatley did not recognize spoke up, saying: "Oui, zhe core's gone."

Wheatley spun his optic around in his shell in order to get a view of what was behind him. He did it just in time to spot Engineer walking out of the workshop and also spotting a tall, slim, Human clad in blue -a piece of clothing Wheatley was fairly sure was called a _'suit'__-_ which covered most of his body, and also a mask hiding most of his face. The latter had a mysterious smoking object in his mouth. The core hadn't seen such a thing before, so he'd have to ask the not-Engineer-Human what exactly it was.

After spotting the two, Wheatley blurted out a "'Ello" as a way of greeting the two Humans.

Both of them turned their heads towards him, simply staring for the first second. After that, Engineer said "Pyro.", which caught Purro's -or maybe it was Pyro, the character was pretty bad at speaking- attention. Said Pyro turned its head towards the pair, stared at them for half a second, and then took off running in the other direction, Engineer quickly giving chase.

Wheatley, confused, shouted out a "Wait, wait, where're we going?" but no response was given.

A second later, Pyro and the accompanying Wheatley turned a corner, to the left, Wheatley catching one last glimpse of the unknown Human, who was doing something Wheatley believed was called, was it _face-palming_?

Another second into the race between Pyro and Engineer, the former started giggling. "Dammit Pyro, it's not funny!" the Engineer shouted out, but it was too late; Pyro's giggling was beyond control.

The Pyro was obviously a bit faster than Engineer, because the latter was starting to trail behind.

Three seconds after the previous corner had been rounded, the still-giggling Pyro rounded another, turning to the right and then running head-first into another Human. The Human in question was wearing weird blue clothing, some sort of oversized helmet and he had two yellow apples (or that's what Wheatley assumed they were) strapped to his chest.

With the Pyro stumbling on the newly-appeared Human, Wheatley was dragged along for the fall, quickly finding himself on top of the previously-mentioned Human, who was now laying face-up on the floor.

Then the Human screamed "Robots!", pulled out a shovel from nowhere and started hitting the core with it.

"Ow-would you-ow-stop, it hurts-ow-STOP IT!" the core shouted at the Human, getting more and more upset with every hit.

"You will not kill me, I will kill you first!" the maniacal Human screamed back, before proceeding to hit the core again.

"Help!-ow-Human-ow-stop!" Wheatley screamed, his casing getting more and more sore as the Human's shovel hit – again and again.

Then Engineer rounded the corner. At first, he got a look of surprise as he took in the scene, but half a second later it had become a stern look, aimed at the Human with the apples.

"Dammit, Solly, that thing's on our side!" Engineer shouted out, stopping the maniac -apparently Solly- in the middle of one of his hits. Solly was now staring at Engineer, a look of surprise on his face.

"Oh... Sorry, private." Solly mumbled to the core, who was glaring angrily at the Human in question.

"You could've jus', jus' _asked_ b'fore you hit me, y'know. Now my casing's all sore." the core said, highly upset and taking the chance to complain about his now-sore casing.

Immediately after the AI had finished his sentence, Solly quickly got back up on his feet. Surprised, Wheatley was dragged along on the way up, his upper handle having caught on to the lower _'apple'_ on Solly's clothing.

"Waaaaah!" the core screamed, entirely un-prepared.

Whilst Pyro was getting up from the ground in the background, Solly semi-shouted "You WILL get off my uniform, maggot!" to the core.

The Personality Construct wiggled his handles a bit, getting loose from Solly's clothing after a few seconds. Engineer then proceeded to pick him up.

Wheatley then spotted something yellow -one of that Human's apples- hanging onto his upper handle. He spun his optic around, taking a look at the Human who indeed now only had one apple on him. "Oi, you dropped one 'o your, your apples, Solly." he said.

Then everything happened really fast.

Somebody shouted out "Grenade!" and Solly dove down on top of Pyro.

When Wheatley heard the word 'grenade' he was first confused, he didn't know what it was, but when he used a quarter of a second to find the word in his dictionary, he quickly decided that it was _NOT_ good.

So he did what he does best in these situations. He ignored the problem, electing to close his eye shutters in an attempt to make the problem go away. _'If he didn't see it, it wouldn't notice him and cause trouble, yeah?'_

Then an explosion was heard, and Wheatley was sent flying, hitting the wall about a meter away. He was showered with some sort of warm liquid immediately after. He was starting to panic, but then remembered that _'no, he was ignoring the problem'_ and by such he managed to calm down a bit.

Then a scream was heard, and Wheatley opened his eye. He saw Engineer, who was covered in red stuff -maybe blood- and he was grasping at his right hand, the one with the glove. Or, rather, where said hand had been a minute ago, now there was only a bloodied stump left.

Solly and Pyro, both seemingly unharmed, quickly got up and proceeded to try and help the Engineer. Then Wheatley closed his eye, not wanting to see any of it, and repeating _"This is not happening"_ to himself. The last thing he needed was to run out of Humans - again, the last time with the relaxation center had been enough as it was. If he repeated the sentence enough times, maybe it would come true. Yes, that was it, just a few more times...

* * *

**- Change of POV to Engineer -**

**Pain.** That was all that was registering in the Texan's brain right now.

He was faintly aware of being carried.

They were moving. Where he did not know, and his brain didn't feel like trying to find out.

All his tired brain could concentrate on now was to conserve energy in an effort to not die from blood-loss.

**Pain.** It was still there, not diminishing. He sincerely wished it would, but it didn't.

He was being put on a table.

He felt the distinct feeling of a medigun on him, and the pain was starting to diminish.

Still too tired to attempt to move, he remained on the table, waiting for the wounds to heal.

With his thoughts returning to a normal level, he quickly remembered what happened.

His right hand had been blown off.

Judging by how his surroundings looked, he was probably in the infirmary; maybe Medic would be able to help him get his hand back.

Right now, though, all he could do was rest and wait for the wounds to heal as much as they can.

A while later, Soldier and Pyro, the ones who had carried Engineer to the infirmary, had left to do other things, and to give Engineer and Medic some time alone for medical talk.

Engineer sat on the operating table, looking at his right arm. Whilst most of Engineer's wounds had healed, his right hand was still gone. The medigun had been unable to restore it, and so he was -for the moment- one-handed.

"So, Doc, can ya fix Mah hand?" Engie asked.

"Vell, zhe medigun vas not built to restore vhole bodyparts, so it cannot heal your hand vizh zhat. During battle, ve vould only send you through zhe Respawn, and you vould be fine."

"But that would'n work now, would it?"

"I'm afraid not. Ass you vell know, zhere vere some problems with Respawn during longer durations. Ve vere both on zhe project of building zhe Respawn machine, ja?"

Yes, Engineer did remember that. Back in the day, when the Doc and himself had been amongst those who developed and built the Respawn machine, they had encountered a rather troubling problem: the samples which were compatible with the Respawn machine had poor longevity, and would start to degrade after a few hours. The longer the samples were left un-updated, the more "corruption" would spread into the Respawn data, making it increasingly risky to use.

The samples themselves were impossible to both increase the longevity of and simultaneously keep compatible with the Respawn machine. They solved it by adding a mandatory update bio-scan before each battle, so that the sample would be fresh and safe to use every time. Without this, Respawn would cause random mutations and errors in the respawned individuals during the next day's battles, and since there would be no functional sample to reset them with, they would be stuck in their mutated state, potentially a state which they would not survive whilst being in, resulting in an endless respawn cycle.

As the Doc said, had the accident happened during the middle of battle, they would've just gone through Respawn and everything would've been fixed. Now, though, with not only the night but also a whole day of ceasefire since the last update, the samples were almost certainly corrupted, so using the Respawn machine now would most likely cause more damage than what it would fix.

"There's got to be some way that Ah can get Mah hand back." Engineer said, hopefully.

"Vell... None zhat I know of." the German responded, thus pretty much obliterating Engineer's hopes.

Silence drifted into the room; aside from the faint whirring of some electrical device in the background, and the sound of breathing, nothing could be heard.

After a few seconds of silence, it was broken by Engineer, who said: "Well, Ah was hopin' it would'n have to come to this, but we seem ta be out of options."

"Vhat are you zhinking?" the Medic asked, somewhat intrigued by this notion of a _'last resort'_.

"Basically, as of late Ah've been workin' on an invention meant to substitute lost body parts. Now, well, Ah seem to fit the description of a person with a lost body part."

"Interesting..." the Medic added, obviously a bit curious about this device.

"Ah've got a prototype in Mah workshop which just so happens to be a right hand. Ah call it the _'Gunslinger'_ and, with my hand lost, Ah was thinking it'd work as a replacement."

"Vell, I vill have to take a look at it to see if it vill vork."

"Ah'll go an' get it." Engineer said, starting to get off from his seat.

"No, you are ein patient, you should rest. I vill get it." the Doctor said, stopping Engineer and then moving towards the infirmary's entrance.

The Healer left, leaving Engineer to his own thoughts. Other than worrying about whether or not the Gunslinger would actually work, Engineer did not do much. He mostly sat there and waited; something some of the other Mercenaries such as the Scout would essentially be unable to do.

After about ten minutes, the Medic came back, holding an object which was indeed the Gunslinger.

"Zhis one, ja?" the Medic asked, holding out the Gunslinger.

"Yeah, Doc, that's the one."

"Vell, better to begin now zhan to vait." the Doc said.

"Ah guess you're right..." Engineer said, and then the process of getting the Gunslinger installed was started.

After twenty minutes of working on attaching the device, they succeeded, only to notice that the connections were set wrong, causing problems such as trying to bend the thumb bended the middle-finger instead, and trying to bend all the fingers at once made a highly well-known, one-fingered and rude gesture. Thus, they had to disconnect it and start all over again.

Another thirty minutes passed before they were -once again- done, and this time the device worked as intended.

Engineer bent his fingers one by one, testing their functionality. He span his hand around, giving it a full 360 degree rotation.

"Well, seems to be working to me." Engineer said, stretching out his new hand for a shake with Medic's.

Whilst the Doc was obviously a bit uncomfortable with shaking the new, mechanical, appendage, he still did, adding in a rather awkward "Ja... It vorks..."

Noticing how uncomfortable his fellow mercenary was with the new, mechanical, hand, he set forth another question.

"Say, Doc, you would'n happen ta have one-a my rubber gloves anywhere around here?" he asked, deciding that it would be best to continue wearing his rubber glove as if he still had his original hand.

The Healer looked around, spotting the sought-for object after a second or two. "Ja, zhere." he said, pointing towards an orange rubber glove that had somehow managed to get into the glove compartment which was used to store the blue rubber gloves Medic used in battle.

Engineer got up, grabbed the glove and put it on his right hand, effectively concealing his Gunslinger.

"Ah reckon we're done, then?" Engineer said.

"Ja, ve are. Zhe new hand seems to be vorking, und you are not exhibiting any symptoms of other injuries. Now I have some papervork to do, so if you vould get out I vould be able to finish earlier." the Medic said

"Sure thing Doc." Engie responded, upon which he then proceeded to leave the infirmary.

* * *

And yeah, chapter 8 everyone. This one was a bit longer than the usual chapter, but it doesn't hurt if a chapter occasionally is a bit longer than my usual length target.

On another note, when it comes to the Engineer losing his hand, this is my reasoning: So I found myself with Wheatley, Soldier and Engineer in the same place, and came to think of the two facts that one: Soldier has grenades, and two: engineer's gunslinger cannot be equipped whilst he has a normal hand. Coincidence? Hardly. A while I was torn between Engineer already having the gunslinger, and simply having the mechanical hand blown off, or not having the gunslinger and letting him get it now. Eventually I went for the latter, since it not only made a more solid background for the Gunslinger itself, but also allowed me to explain this story's view on the Respawn system, and generally fill out the story a bit more that what "oh, my mechanical hand was blown off, replace it with a duplicate" would have.

Additionally: Comments and reviews are appreciated.

PS: that spy was indeed face-palming, this time at the idiocy of his teammates due to Engineer not realizing that if nobody gave chase the fun in the game would disappear for Pyro.


End file.
